


Clara and Missy Under Skaro (or, Witch's Familiar Cutaway)

by TheSaddleman



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Canon Fill-in, Confessions, Crushes, F/M, Foreshadowing, Love, Spoilers for Episode s09e02: The Witch's Familiar, minor suggestiveness, providing what the tv show wouldn't, references to other Series 8 and 9 episodes, set between scenes, whouffaldi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-28
Updated: 2018-07-28
Packaged: 2019-06-17 06:52:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15455736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSaddleman/pseuds/TheSaddleman
Summary: Set within the events of The Witch's Familiar, and based upon a deleted scene, Missy forces Clara to face an inconvenient truth about her relationship with the Doctor.





	Clara and Missy Under Skaro (or, Witch's Familiar Cutaway)

**Author's Note:**

> This story was inspired by a recent post on Tumblr by fellow AO3 [xXdreameaterXx](https://archiveofourown.org/users/xXdreameaterXx/works) about Volume 80 of the book series Doctor Who, the Complete History, which looks at the making of the Series 9 episode "The Witch's Familiar". One bit in the book reveals that, in an early draft of the script, Missy was originally to talk to Clara about the Doctor having a crush on her ("Always the teachers"). Why this amusing - and Whouffaldi-confirming - bit of dialogue was cut is beyond me. So what I have done is written a little "fill-in" set during "The Witch's Familiar" that suggests how this exchange might have played out. It takes place during the sequence in which Twelve, having stolen Davros' chair, is now demanding the Daleks confirm if Clara is really dead, his words being broadcast throughout Skaro. In terms of time-frame this does not match what is on screen; but my feeling is if they were to expand the scene to incorporate something like this, there would likely be a change to how events progressed on screen.

“I want Clara Oswald, safe, alive.”

Missy chuckled. “Listen to that! My, my, ol’Theta Sigma sounds like a child demanding Mummy give him a lollipop.”

Clara tried to come up with a snarky comeback, but couldn’t. She was too unnerved by the emotional tremor in the Doctor’s voice as it unexpectedly echoed through the Dalek city, even down in the sewers beneath where she and Missy found themselves now as they mounted an ad hoc rescue mission to save him. It was a tone of voice she’d never heard from him before.

But, then, as far as the Doctor knew, Clara was very likely no more than scattered atoms, disintegrated by a Dalek’s laser. He was clinging to desperate hope that it had been all a trick, somehow. Those few words from him made that clear. It also made clear, to her horror, that the Doctor must have _seen it happen_. She kept her face as stony as possible, not wanting to give Missy the satisfaction of noticing that her emotions were going haywire. Clara realized that she had stopped walking; she doubled her pace to catch up with Missy.

“Oh, that man and his crushes,” Missy continued as she casually drew a finger along a wall that, as she’d explained to a repulsed Clara a few moments earlier, was covered with the semi-sentient remains of Daleks. “He was just the same at school.” 

Clara bristled, suddenly distracted out of her previous mood by that ridiculous thought. “He does not have a crush on me,” she said. 

“Always the teachers, too. Face facts, you’re the next River Song, my dear.” Missy quietly began to hum the first few bars of _Here Comes the Bride_.

“I don’t like having this conversation,” said Clara, stopping again. This made Missy stop as well and turn to face the young woman.

“Why not? Because you know it’s true? I have a little news flash for you, missy—no, wait, that’s me (didn’t really think this alias through completely)—anyway... the news flash is I brought you two together because I wanted to pair the Doctor with someone who was his reflection, just in a tighter skirt. I wanted to bring chaos into his life. And as far as most people are concerned, I succeeded.”

“That’s not a news flash. That’s old news,” Clara said, tersely.

“Really? I didn’t think you were paying attention when I told the Doctor, you being all, ‘I wanna kill the nasty mean woman who turned my boyfriend into a Cyberman’ at the time. OK, so here is a bit of new news, then. I actually failed.”

“How?” Clara scoffed.

“I didn’t expect him to fall in love with you,” Missy whispered as she leaned in close. Then her voice cut through the quiet. “ _Ding! Ding!_ Stop the presses!”

“He is _not_ in love with me!” Clara, still startled by Missy raising her voice, pointed the stick she was carrying in her direction. “Don’t you be saying that.”

The Doctor’s voice boomed through the city again: “You bring her back! You do it now!” Clara wanted nothing more to be by his side. To hug him, even if he hated her doing so. To let him know she was OK.

“Clara, I’m insane, not oblivious.” Missy pointed at the roof of the cavern. “You’ve got a Time Lord who’s gaga for you up there. And don’t pretend you don’t feel the same and didn’t try every trick in the book to pull the wool over Danny’s eyes so you could stay with the Doctor, especially after what you two did on the Orient Express in Space when you thought no one was looking. I’m very tempted to kill you right now.”

“Why? Jealous?”

“Time Lords don’t do jealousy. We just outlive the competition or wait till a regeneration happens that isn’t to the competition’s liking and then swoop in with a stiff drink and a shoulder to cry on. But I will concede that I didn’t do my homework on that score, Miss ‘Never-Had-the-Slightest-Interest-in-Pretty-Young-Men.’”

“How did you know about that conversation?” Clara demanded. “Or about what happ-er-what you think happened on the Orient Express?”

“What, you never used the time-space visualizer to spy on anyone in the shower? Don’t worry; I got bored and turned over to _Don’t Scare the Hare_ before I saw anything scandalous. By the time I switched back, you were in the middle of a guilt call to Danny Boy and the Doctor was talking to himself. Must have been one hell of a nightcap.”

Clara kept silent.

“I’ve seen how you look at the Doctor when he has his head buried in the TARDIS console, how he looks at you when your back is turned. Why not just put a ring on it so he can tell you his real name and the two of you can retire to a condo in Ibiza?” 

“That’s not how we roll.”

“And that’s what is going to bite the both of you in the arse someday. Hard. That’s why I should kill you now. Put you out of his misery. The worst that would happen if I did is Skaro would probably vanish from the cosmos today, but it wouldn’t be the first time the Doctor has done that and maybe he’d get the job done properly for once. And, as for you, some minion who doesn’t even know your full name would eventually carve your name into that plaque on the wall of that indoctrination centre for underdeveloped humans you call a school. Probably right under Soldier Boy's name if none of your colleagues get eaten by some space monster first. You were impressively emotional the day that was dedicated, by the way; so many tears. Who knows what sort of scene you might have caused if the Doctor wasn’t there with you?” 

Clara's stick was up again, and pointed at Missy. Missy ignored it, along with the derogatory word that the other woman mouthed at her, unable to speak.

Missy pressed on: “Someday—and the way you two carry on, it won’t be too long from now—something is going to happen to you in a less-convenient venue and the Doctor will lose control and destroy everything. Or maybe he’ll be the one to snuff it and then _you’ll_ be the one to do something idiotic. After all, the two of you are the … ah, no, that would be telling.”

Clara was so done with her by this point, and she found her voice again. “Are you going to help me rescue the Doctor or not? If you’re just going to talk in riddles, then piss off.”

“You actually kiss the Doctor with that potty mouth? Take my advice; if we get out of this with our skin still attached to our bodies, find a nice young man, or woman, or adopt a bunch of cats, and settle down. Play the ‘It’s not you, it’s me’ card with the Doctor or however you break up with people on Earth these days. Sure, he’ll spend the next while compulsively painting portraits of you like he did the last time he lost you—last two times, actually; he probably has a room full of them—but the universe will keep on spinning at least. The next time a Dalek shoots at you, I might not be there to pull your fat out of the fire and God knows what he will do then. But right now …” Missy pointed a finger upwards.

“If Clara Oswald is really dead, then you'd better be very, very careful how you tell me,” the Doctor’s voice echoed.

For the first time, Clara realized that Missy might have been serious. About everything.

“Listen to that,” Missy said. “The Doctor without hope. Nobody is safe now.”

**Author's Note:**

> This story incorporates a few lines of dialogue from the episode "The Witch's Familiar" by Steven Moffat.
> 
> "Theta Sigma" was the Doctor's nickname at the academy, as first revealed in "The Armageddon Factor".
> 
> For those wondering, the dialogue from "Oh that man and his crushes" through to "Always the teachers, too" is the deleted scene described in Volume 80 (though Missy drawing a finger along the wall and the continuation referencing River are my additions). 
> 
> The events of "Mummy on the Orient Express", "Death in Heaven" and "Deep Breath" are discussed. 
> 
> The Time-Space Visualizer is a tool that dates back to "The Chase"; my opinion is that's what Missy used to spy on Clara in Series 8.
> 
> "Don't Scare the Hare" was an infamously bad BBC game show that aired just before Doctor Who for part of Series 6. It was cancelled after only a few episodes in the real world; in the Whoniverse, however, it had a long run...
> 
> The Seventh Doctor destroyed Skaro in Remembrance of the Daleks. We never really got a firm explanation in either the Asylum of the Daleks Prequel or Magician's Apprentice/Witch's Familiar how it came back (though I believe the novels and audios have had a go).


End file.
